But it would stop the tribunal cold. It would legally hamstring Trent. It would keep her out of the diagnostic circle and behind the wall of my political name.
"There's a catch," I said, my tactical mind already racing through the fallout matrix. "A campus rumor isn't enough to override the Northern paperwork. The claim has to be witnessed, immediate, and irrefutable."
"Exactly. It cannot be a whispered declaration in a dorm room," the Dean agreed. "It has to be widely witnessed, photographically documented, and legally indisputable by a quorum of the highest legacy elite."
"The Autumn Gala," I said.
The Annual Shifter Legacy Gala — tomorrow night, in the grand ballroom. The largest, most attended, most photographed elite social event of the academic year. Every legacy heir on campus, every visiting political envoy, half the high council representatives. A glittering, dangerous snake pit.
"If you intend to use the Aldridge name to legally shield her from the audit, you must do it on the largest stage available," the Dean confirmed, picking up his ruined coffee cup with a shaking hand. "But understand the cost. Once you claim that specific omega in front of the continental elite, you cannot take it back. You'll be permanently tying your family's political reputation to her publicized broken bond. The conservative backlash will be severe."
"I'll handle the backlash," I growled, turning for the splintered door.
I didn't care about the pristine reputation. I didn't care about my father's anger or the high council's whispered gossip. The only thing that mattered was the terrified omega in my inner sanctum, staring at a silver tether that kept threatening to destroy her life.
She was a Pack-Heart. The world didn't need to know that yet. They just needed to know she belonged to me.
"Dean Ashcroft." I paused in the shattered doorway. "Ensure Wren's name is added to the VIP attendance list for the Gala tomorrow night."
"You're forcing her to attend?" He raised an eyebrow. "An unbonded omega with a publicized broken scar at a legacy event will be savaged by the social elite."
"She won't go voluntarily if I ask," I said quietly.
A sick, heavy twist of guilt turned in my gut. I was going to drag her — terrified, unwilling — into the center of her worst social nightmares. I was going to use the same corrupt political machine that broke her to save her.
"Make the invitation mandatory attendance," I said, my voice going flat and dead. "Frame it as a council-mandated security requirement. Tell her that as a student under active tribunal investigation, her continued enrollment is contingent on cooperation with all official academy functions. If she doesn't attend, the Dean's office files a voluntary withdrawal on her behalf — effective immediately."
It was ruthless. Manipulative. Worthy of Trent Hawthorne himself. It made me sick to say it aloud.
But as I walked out of the administrative building and back into the freezing autumn air, the dried blood on my split knuckles reminded me of the stakes.
We were out of safe options. The careful perimeter had failed the moment it met the legal system.
Tomorrow night, we weren't hiding.
We were taking the fight to the center of the monsters' den.
17
WREN
The Autumn Shifter Legacy Gala was not a festive collegiate party. It was a political battlefield dressed in silk, diamonds, and imported champagne.
The ancient vaulted ballroom dripped with crystal chandeliers, the air saturated with the clashing scents of purebred wolves, ancient vampires, and high fae. The ambient music wasn't for dancing — a low, throbbing bassline carefully designed to mask the vicious, whispered maneuvering happening in every dark corner.
I stood in the remotest corner I could find, spine pressed against a cold stone pillar, trying to make myself as small as possible.
I was wearing a floor-length, high-necked vintage gown I'd found in a dusty second-hand shop that afternoon — a heavy curtain of black velvet that successfully hid the faint silver Pack-Heart lines on my chest without drawing the scrutinizing stares a turtleneck would provoke at a formal event.
The thick velvet couldn't hide my panicked baseline scent from the predators in the room. It couldn't hide the crushing, publicized shame of being here at all.
I shouldn't be here.
I'd spent the last twenty-four hours locked in the inner sanctum, oscillating between a humiliating biological craving for the three alphas who'd anchored me and a cold, furious realization of the cage they'd built over my head.
Then the mandatory summons had arrived from the Dean's office via courier:As a student under active tribunal investigation, your continued enrollment is contingent on cooperation with all official academy functions. Attendance at tonight's Legacy Gala is mandatory. Non-compliance will result in voluntary withdrawal being filed on your behalf, effective immediately.
Ruthless. Manipulative. It had worked perfectly. I was here.
